DC is publishing a series of comic books titled Before Watchmen – a prequel to the critically acclaimed Watchmen book. Yet it’s been fraught with controversy as Noah Berlatsky reports in an article about how creators are treated in the comic book industry:

• Watchmen was originally written by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon. The prequels will not involve either of those writers.
• The rights to Watchmen is held by DC Comics. Alan Moore feels cheated because in the original contract DC gave him he was told that the rights for the characters would revert back to him when the book went out of print – which normally took a few years. But Watchmen has never gone out of print since it was released in 1986, meaning that DC has held the rights in perpetuity.
• Moore’s case is not an exception. The creators of Superman sold the rights for the hero for just $130. They spent the rest of their lives trying to regain control of the character.
• The Marvel characters in the new Avengers movie are mostly created by Jack Kirby. Yet his estate will not see any of the $1 billion the film has earned so far.
• Some comic book writers are taking a stand and refusing to take work from companies that engage in such practices.
• Yet people like Alan Moore perhaps don’t have the moral high ground they seem to think. Moore, for example, was more than happy to adapt (and some would say desecrate) the lead female characters from Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and Peter Pan in the pornographic Lost Girls.

To read more including what Dave Gibbon, the other writer of the Watchmen series seems to think about it, how money seems to be absent from Moore’s motivations, what the writers of Before Watchmen have to say, why few people seem to care, why people dismiss Moore as a crank, the themes that Moore likes to explore, why this is in part the inevitable fate of art, and what happened to the Watchmen sequel that Moore was meant to write, click here.

Source: Slate

America was the world’s leading exporter until it was eclipsed by Germany in 2003, and then China. But could the US regain its status as top dog in exports? Tyler Cowen argues that it’s likely to happen. Highlights include:

• Artificial Intelligence, robots and computers are the present…and the future. Americans are best at producing this and people will demand it across the world.
• Moreover the more that the world relies on machines and thus capital instead of labour, the less it will matter that the US has a relatively high wage rate. Wages simply won’t enter into the equation – machines will.
• America has also pioneered fracking technology and has large shale oil and natural gas deposits. It could soon become the Saudi Arabia of energy thus creating jobs. Other countries don’t have the technology, or, as in areas of Europe, are too population dense to frack.
• As other countries continue to develop economically, there will be greater demand for products produced in the United States.
• This will, in fact, improve Sino-US relations potentially creating a more peaceful world.
• However America’s export dominance might not lead to higher wages for all.

To read much more of what is a long, detailed, and exhaustive analysis of America’s past, present, and future, how society will have to adjust, the joke about a man and a dog in a factory, why Europe and Japan won’t be able to capitalize as much upon the economic development of other countries, the coming two tiers in the United States and just so much more, click here.

Source: The American Interest

When you sign up for a new account you’re normally asked for a username, password, and a security question in case you lose access to your account. Yet the answers to these questions are often easily guessed as Sarah Palin found. What’s a good question to set?

• The answer to the question must be memorable – you likely won’t need it until many years after you set it.
• It also shouldn’t be easy to find through social media.
• Based on research done by Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University the best question then is “What is your father’s middle name?” as it meets both criteria.
• This wouldn’t work for famous celebrities, but it does work for the average person.
• Other questions that work include: “What was your first phone number?” and “Who was your favourite teacher?”
• Preference questions such as colour are too easy to guess – there are really only a few options.
• The answers to questions such as “Favourite historical person?” are often forgotten by the users themselves.

To read the questions (and answers) that Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin set for their accounts, some examples of questions that seem difficult, but really aren’t, why nonsense questions don’t work, what not to do when you set your own security question, and other things to watch out for, click here.

Source: Slate

The American continent was made for farming writes Matthew Yglesias. He then explores some of the steps that the United States should take to secure the future of its farm industry. He points out:

• The American farming sector has done incredibly well. Agricultural inputs have only increased 0.11% since 1948 yet output has increased 170%.
• Farming stands alongside software, media, financial services, airplanes and military equipment as America’s chief exports.
• As countries around the world develop and get richer they are likely to consume more meat – and since meat requires a lot of grain that means that there will be a huge opportunity for America’s farmers to exploit.
• To do so it should reverse the long term decline in arable land. This is in part due to urban regulations that discourage the building of skyscrapers which causes cities to expand into farmlands.
• There is also the need for immigration reform. Temporary workers need a legal way to enter the United States. Crops currently go rotten in the fields for a lack of people to pick them.

To read more including the size of the farming industry, the countries that the United States exports to, why it’s unfair to compare farming to jet plane production or computer production, the ‘secret sauce’ of the farming industry, why demand for meat is such a big opportunity for America’s farmers, the problem that Washington D.C. is creating, the changing political mood, and what the future of the industry looks like, click here.

Source: Slate

Elizabeth Weingarten explored the five frontiers that food science is currently exploring. They include:

• Genetically enhanced nutrient rich foods. Soon certain foods like sweet potatoes may contain all of the nutrients you need.
• Nanoparticles could change the flavour of your food. One such product already exists. Nanoceuticals’ chocolate SlimShake claims to use the technology to add sweetness without adding calories.
• Laboratory Burgers – meat could be produced in labs as little as 10-15 years.
• Bacteria killing food sprays. The FDA recently approved an E.coli food spray for industrial use. A consumer version could cost as little as a penny for every pound of meat.

To read the entire list, and to find out the role that the Netherlands plays, the nano-grain of salt to consider, the failed food predictions of the past, the future of cookie dough, why entire generations of kids are taught not to eat chocolate cake batter, and the efforts to prevent an agricultural doomsday in 2050 click here.

Source: Slate

David Leonhardt reports on a fascinating poll conducted by the Pew Research Center. Highlights include:

• Across most of Europe Germany is considered to be the hardest working country and Greece the least.
• The exception is Greece which believes that Greece is the hardest working country and Italy the least.
• The Italians believe that the Romanians are the least hard working (but agree that the Germans are the most.)

To see all the results of what is a fascinating study, what this means for Europe, which country is considered the most corrupt, and why the argument about the Euro is really a disagreement about fairness, click here.

Source: The New York Times

Is Facebook threatening Silicon Valley? Farhad Manjoo outlines the case against:

• Silicon Valley used to be about innovations and making new things. Google made its name in search and is now trying out driverless cars. Facebook is just a social network.
• The brightest engineers at Facebook are trying to figure out how to get people to click on ads rather than deliver new visions and products.

But Manjoo argues quite convincingly that these fears are unfounded noting that:

• Facebook has helped Silicon Valley. People can now comment on websites using their Facebook accounts rather than having to go through the tedious process of creating different accounts for different sites.
• Facebook has also meant a transfer of wealth from Wall Street to Silicon Valley through its IPO.
• Connecting people – the very core of Facebook – is an innovative and useful tool in and of itself.

To read more about the case for and against Facebook, why it’s not a problem that Facebook is perceived by many as a waste of time, what porn can tell us about Facebook, why it has become essential to startups, why even a potential tech bubble would not be a case against Facebook, and see and try out some new apps that make use of Facebook click here.

Source: Slate

Lyle Brennan reported on the World’s Largest Pool. Highlights include:

• The pool, located at a resort in Chile, contains 66 million gallons of sea water.
• It is heated to 26 degrees Celsius.
• It is over a kilometer in length.
• At its deepest point it is 35 meters deep – making it the deepest pool in the world.
• The pool cost £1billion to build and costs £2 million a year to run.

To see more stunning photos that demonstrate the gargantuan proportions of the pool, its history, and some more fascinating stats, click here.

Source: The Daily Mail

Via: Marginal Revolution